Declaration of covenants

The first word in the statutory definition is recorded. Florida Statutes 720.301(3) defines a community as the real property that is or will be subject to a declaration of covenants “which is recorded in the county where the property is located”, so the instrument is recorded in the county where the land it governs lies.

Section 720.301(4) then says what kind of instrument it is: “a recorded written instrument or instruments in the nature of covenants running with the land”, which “subject the land comprising the community to the jurisdiction and control of an association or associations”. The obligations are attached to the land. The same definition adds that “the owners of the parcels, or their association representatives, must be members”, and 720.301(12) makes a parcel owner the record owner of legal title to a parcel. Read together, whoever next becomes the record owner of a parcel is a parcel owner under 720.301(12) and so must be a member of the association the land was placed under.

That association is the homeowners association, the corporation that operates the community.

A condominium has its own founding document. Florida Statutes 718.103(16) defines the declaration of condominium as “the instrument or instruments by which a condominium is created, as they are from time to time amended”, a Chapter 718 term rather than another name for a declaration of covenants.

What a particular declaration says about roofs, driveways or exterior colors is in that declaration and its recorded amendments. The document itself, or the manager who keeps a community's records, is where that text is found.

The declaration is also the ceiling on an association's say over how a home looks. Florida Statutes 720.3035(1)(a) permits an association or its committee to enforce external appearance standards only to the extent the authority is “specifically stated or reasonably inferred” in the declaration or in “other published guidelines and standards authorized by the declaration of covenants”.

That wording gives published guidelines a place, but only as a branch of the declaration: guidelines count when the declaration authorizes them. The architectural review committee applies those standards; the declaration is where they begin.

Section 720.3035 does not name roof cleaning, and neither does the definition of a declaration. When an association expects a clean roof, the expectation sits in its own documents, which is why the question of why HOAs require roof cleaning is answered in covenants rather than state law, and why whether roof cleaning counts as maintenance for an HOA turns on a declaration's wording. The association passage in the Florida rules for roof cleaning quotes the same statute.

Enforcement leads back to the same place. Under 720.305(2), an association may levy reasonable fines for violations of the declaration, the association's bylaws or its reasonable rules, and a fine first requires the written notice described under violation notice.